Testimony: County office questioned ex-Centinela Valley superintendent’s contract long before pay scandal

Feb. 01--Long before controversy erupted over former Centinela Valley superintendent Jose Fernandez's lucrative compensation package, the Los Angeles County Office of Education expressed concern about his contract, an attorney said Thursday.

Sue Ann Evans, who once advised the Centinela Valley Union High School District on personnel matters, was contacted weeks after the school board approved Fernandez's December 2009 employment agreement about a peculiar provision, according to emails read aloud in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom.

The office questioned why Fernandez's schedule as the district's chief called for only 215 work days per year, 30 days less than the norm for administrators.

"As I explained, this is a requirement for full-time employment under PERS," Fernandez wrote in a January 2010 email to Evans in response to the inquiry. He was referring to the state's public pension program.

The exchange was one of several between the superintendent and attorneys working for the district read by Deputy District Attorney Stefan Mrakich this week during Fernandez's preliminary hearing.

Prosecutors allege the shortened work calendar was a trick devised by Fernandez to dramatically boost his pay, especially when combined with another provision approved by the board a year later in December 2010. Buried in one of four massive binders containing 3,000 board policy changes, the section gave Fernandez pay for days he worked beyond the 215 in his contract.

The result: Fernandez cashed out $25,000 worth of unused vacation time and earned $50,000 in extra days' pay.

He has been charged with lying to the school board about these and other perks that made him the highest paid superintendent in the state, if not the nation, taking home $750,000 in compensation in 2013.

Centinela Valley serves 6,200 students in three high schools and a continuation school in Hawthorne and Lawndale.

Fernandez could face up to 15 years in prison if he is convicted of a dozen corruption charges, including embezzlement, grand theft and conflict of interest. He was fired in July 2014 amid uproar when the Daily Breeze revealed his lavish compensation.

The preliminary hearing began Monday in downtown Los Angeles and, so far, has featured the testimony of six witnesses, though as many as 30 could be called. A judge will decide whether to order Fernandez to stand trial. A secret grand jury convened in May 2016 did not indict him.

Evans and two other attorneys with the law firm Dannis Woliver Kelley -- Samuel Santana and Candace Bandoian -- have been granted immunity in exchange for their testimony.

During questioning this week, Bandoian and Evans each said there were occasions when Fernandez contacted them for legal advice and they had to remind him that they worked for the school board, not his personal interests.

One occasion was when he wanted to take out a $910,000, low-interest home loan written into his contract, Evans said.

"That is a matter of his own personal interest, as opposed to a matter of the district," she said.

Another time, when the board considered approving the binders full of bylaw revisions, Fernandez asked another attorney, Jack Balass, whether the changes would need to go before the trustees at more than one meeting.

Evans replied that she couldn't find a legal requirement that they must, though it was common practice.

She testified that she had no idea the board was revising all of its policies at once, something she has never seen in her 25 years representing school districts with the law firm. Evans said she never looked at the changes. Fernandez also hid a $750,000 whole-life insurance policy in them, prosecutors allege.

Mrakich also spent time Thursday on the absence of cost analyses in staff reports about the policy changes that enriched Fernandez.

Fernandez's attorney, Vicki Podberesky, pointed out that the board began discussing updating its policies in June 2010, months before prosecutors say trustees were intentionally deluged with the revisions. Additionally, she said, the board was invited to workshops to go over them.

As for Fernandez's contract, Podberesky noted it went before the board at not one, but two meetings in December 2009, and the public had opportunities to view it and weigh in.

"Mr. Fernandez's contract was properly brought before the board," she said.

Two more attorneys who advised the school district, Ballas and Dennis Hernandez, are expected to testify Friday.

According to an August 2017 search warrant, Fernandez falsely told the school board Hernandez had negotiated his contract.

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